The Three Lands Omnibus (2011 Edition) (75 page)

"It's not a choice I'd want to make," I said, wrapping the brooch carefully in a face-cloth before packing it. "At any rate, Lord Dean does have a point in what he said to me."
"Lord Dean's points are like dagger points; they can only kill. Listen to me." Peter pulled himself forward so that he was kneeling on the bed close to me. "If I ever need advice on who to marry, it is you I will go to, not a man like Lord Dean. You know me better than anyone, better than even my father knew me, and nothing of what you are to the world changes what you are to me."
I said nothing, did not even look his way, but let my smile be my reply. After a moment, Peter pulled himself back to his place against the wall and said, "Well, you had better tell me everything that the old fox said to you this morning."
I told him, and when I was through, Peter said, "Some of what he says is true. He's wrong, of course, to think that I wouldn't marry for fear of hurting our friendship. You and I both know that it's possible to love more than one person at a time. But he's right in thinking that our friendship has affected the way I look at marriage. It is just that it goes much deeper than Lord Dean sees."
I tossed the pack to one side, drew myself up onto the bed, and sat down beside Peter, sharing the same wall as my backrest. "How deep?"
Peter thought for a moment before saying, "Masks. Do you remember that we discussed masks this morning? And I mentioned the slave-masks that you told me about when we first talked. Since that time I've had experience wearing an even more rigid mask, and it isn't the terrible bondage that I once thought it would be. It's a burden, of course, being the Chara and subsuming my own person in the role that I was born to play. But this is something I've chosen of my own free will to do, and I love to do it – sometimes. There are times, though, when I tire of being the law's embodiment and need simply to be myself. You're one of the few people with whom I can be myself, and that's one reason I'm grateful to know you. If I were married—" He stopped.
"You might find a wife with whom you could take off your mask," I said.
"Perhaps I will, but I haven't found her yet. And I couldn't bear to spend the entire day as the Chara, and then return to my quarters in the evening and be forced to continue that role. I want to remove my mask then, as I do with you. I think . . ." He paused, and then said deliberately, "I would never willfully neglect my duty, of course. But if my duty required me always to be the Chara, I think that I would become unbalanced."
I remained silent a moment, balancing in my mind what he had said and what Lord Dean had said. Knowing what I did by now of Peter's burdens, it was not a hard judgment for me to make. "Well, then, you are right not to marry yet. And you should place Lord Dean under the high doom if he tries to change your mind."
Peter smiled, the lines of pain in his face disappearing like scratches on the earth fading under rain. "I knew that you would understand. So will you promise me something, please? If you go back to Koretia and find that it's truly your home, of course you must stay – I'd be angry with you if you didn't. But will you please not stay in Koretia out of some misguided sense of duty that Lord Dean has tried to impress upon you?"
"I promise you, unless we discover some unknown law that requires me to stay in Koretia, I will remain with you as long as you need me."
"You've just given me a reason never to read the law books again," Peter said. "Lord Carle will be annoyed with you for interfering with my studies."
"I don't suppose that Lord Carle lacks reasons to be annoyed with me," I said. "But in any case, you needn't worry about Koretia. Emor is my home, and the dagger I just packed is proof of it."
 
CHAPTER SEVEN
Long before he arrived, I heard the cheering of the slaves lining the corridor to receive a glimpse of him as he walked back from the Court of Judgment. I had arrived at his quarters two hours before and had found that the guards were so overcome with excitement that they did not even question why a slave would be entering his master's quarters at so late an hour and on such an evening.
I stood with my head resting against the jamb of the southern window as the cheers intensified, and then the door opened and the acclamations died down as Peter entered the room and closed the door.
His cloak had become tangled in the chain holding the Pendant of Judgment. He brushed the cloth free with a heavy, stylized gesture, and his head turned with slow dignity as he began to look around the chamber. He caught sight of me before I could see his face, and by the time he had turned his head he was grinning. He looked no older than his sixteen years.
"Thank the spirits of the dead Charas that it's you," Peter said, tugging at his sword sheath with a fumbling grasp. "If it were anyone else, I would have to go on pretending that I was immortal and invulnerable, rather than ready to drop from exhaustion." He placed the sheathed sword on the writing table, pulled impatiently at the clasp holding his cloak, and hissed softly as the pin bit into his finger. Flinging his cloak onto the chair next to the fire, he stood smiling at me for a moment without moving, as though drawing upon my silence after the music and cheers of the court.
I did not bother to move to collect the cloak. "Did the ceremony go well?" I asked.
"The ceremony went very well. I, on the other hand, was terrible. Lord Dean has been drilling me for three days on where to stand, how to move, what to say – and when the time came for me to act, I simply forgot everything that he had told me. I am not at all sure what I did, and I'm certain that I've offended – or amused – all of the elder lords and officials who were at my father's installation." He threw himself onto the couch, letting one of his legs dangle off the side and pressing the back of a wrist onto his forehead. For a moment he stared at the ceiling, and then with the quirk of a smile he said, "I wish that my father had been present to show me what to do. He always used to glare at me whenever I was about to make the wrong move at ceremonies."
He added in a low voice, "But since it is not possible for one Chara to attend the enthronement of the next Chara, I did the best that I could. It was hardest of all to make my oath. I was supposed to be swearing my oath to all of my subjects, but you weren't there, and you were the subject to whom I would have most liked to have said those words."
I did not speak. Down below in the city, I knew, the celebration bonfires were blazing, set not only by the city inhabitants but also by the visitors who had flooded into the city from the Three Lands. Harp music drifted across from the southern end of the palace where the lesser free-men had gone after the ceremony. A more rowdy tune was being sung in the basement slave-quarters where I had lived for the past five years. The young Chara turned on his side, resting his head on his elbow, and for a moment his face was serious.
Then he picked up the emblem brooch from a nearby table. He held it up in the air but did not put it on, since he had not yet taken off his pendant. With mock despair, he said, "I would
like
to think that I have undergone the worst experience I will ever endure during my reign, but I'm beginning to understand why my father was so short-tempered. Today I spent an hour listening to Lord Carle explain how Emor will crumble if I'm not familiar with every subsection of every section of the Chara's laws. Tomorrow I preside over the Court of Judgment, which I'm dreading, though the court summoners tell me they have scheduled only easy cases for the next fortnight. And yesterday I spent most of the day with my clerk, trying to make sense of these—" He flung his hand out toward a pile of newly-penned documents stacked on a table next to the couch. His fingers caught the edge of the pile, and a few of the papers tumbled down. I walked forward, knelt by the table, and began placing the fallen papers back on the stack.
"My apologies," said Peter, watching me from an arm's length away. "As though my slaves didn't have enough to do, preparing for my enthronement. What terrible tasks has the palace slave-keeper been assigning you?"
As he spoke, I continued to stack the papers carefully together. Most of the documents were scribed in Old Emorian, the law language, but one sheet caught my eye because it was written in Modern Emorian. I glimpsed its title – "Slaves to be Assigned to the Household Service of Peter, the Great Chara" – and scanned the short list of names before quickly thrusting the sheet into the middle of the stack. Then, my heart thumping, I looked up at Peter.
He had not noticed my action; he had looked away momentarily to wipe the emblem brooch on his cloak, and now he was raising it up again to see it shine in the firelight. As he caught me observing him, he smiled at me, and at his look, I felt my chest grow less tight.
"Does not the Chara know what his own slaves are doing?" I asked, allowing my eyes to smile back at him.
"The Chara has—" He calculated rapidly in his head. "I have 936 slaves, 165 court officials, and 289 palace free-servants – minus one, Drogo, because I inherited him from my father and hated having him as my personal free-servant. Dismissing him was my one purely pleasurable deed during the past few days. Other than Drogo, I have no idea what any of the people under my care are doing. I feel like a babe who has just been given charge over an army and must issue his first proclamation."
The door to the corridor opened. Peter and I gaped up from where we were, Peter lying on the couch, and me kneeling close by to him. Then I carefully picked myself up and went over to the fireside to gather up the Chara's cloak.
Peter had risen as well, saying smoothly, "It is good to see you, Lord Carle. I did not think that you would be by here until later."
I turned around with the cloak and saw that Lord Carle was watching me. His sword was unsheathed and his expression unreadable. Then his gaze slid over to the Chara, and I saw that Lord Carle was looking at the brooch that Peter still held in his hand. I wondered whether he would scold Peter for holding an ornament that was not part of his ceremonial dress. But all that he said was, "The guards allowed me in, since you told them to expect me. I beg your pardon for not knocking. It is hard for me to remember that you are no longer a boy."
"Yes," said Peter tersely. "Andrew, please take Lord Carle's cloak—"
Lord Carle waved me off. "I was on my way back to my quarters to change, but thought that I would stop to give you my congratulations." He raised his fist to his heart and held his sword blade against his forehead, imitating the oath of loyalty he had just given in the ceremony. "I will come by later, as you had requested. I am sorry to have disturbed you."
Peter relaxed his stiff pose as the door closed. "Thank the laws that he's gone. He is always respectful and helpful, and I know that he is the most loyal free-man I have, but he makes me exceedingly nervous with his formality. I sometimes think that he privately considers me a fool who is unfit for the office of the Chara."
"Then
he
is the fool," I said softly. "The Emorian people are lucky to have you."
Peter started. As he met my gaze, he replied quietly, "Thank you. . . . Andrew, I have something here for you." He leaned over and fingered through the pile of documents for a moment before pulling out a sheet of paper and walking over to stand next to me.
"I was intending to show this to you later, when we had a chance to talk," he said, "but you're here tonight. Can you read Old Emorian?"
"Just a little, Chara," I said. "I learned some when I was young, and learned a bit more this spring when I was working in the court clerk's quarters."
Peter gave a quirk of a smile. Slaves are not normally to be found scribing documents in the quarters of the Chara's clerk. Normally I would have been assigned other work while Peter took one final trip to the northern dominions with Lord Carle. But at the last minute, much to the palace slave-keeper's consternation, Peter had announced his wish that I be assigned a scribe's duties. I had overheard Lord Carle roaring at him about that decision.
"Well, then, perhaps you can make some sense of this," Peter said. "I can read Daxion, Koretian, and half a dozen other languages, but I will never master clerks' language. I had my clerk scribe this today, and I've signed it and will seal it as soon as I figure out which court official has custody of my father's seal-ring. What all the language amounts to . . ." Peter held the paper out to me, his gaze fixed on my face. ". . . is that you are free. It is your manumission paper."
I stared down at the page, seeing nothing among the black-inked words except the signature of Peter, followed by his half-dozen new titles. As though pulled, my gaze drifted up to the window on the other side of the room, through which I could see the black border mountains.
Without knowing how I got there, I found myself standing by the window, peering out at the mountains as though I could look straight through them to my homeland. Behind me, Peter said, "I had planned to give you a present for your years in service at the palace. If you would like, I could give you the goods and money you will need to return to Koretia and restart your life there."
His voice pulled me back from the scene. I turned and saw that he was standing where I had left him, my paper of freedom in his hand. He was watching me with a guarded expression I was accustomed to seeing when he was with others, but which he had rarely used against me.
When I did not reply, he said, in the same, even tone as before, "On the other hand, if, for any reason, you should wish to stay in Emor for three or four years more, I am in need of a new free-servant and would be pleased if you took on the duty."
I looked back at the dark mountains, and for a long while I remained silent. My right hand was clasped around my left wrist, and my thumb was rubbing the almost imperceptible remnant of a scar. Then I said, without looking at Peter, "Chara, I do not think that it is a good plan for a Koretian to stay longer in Emor than he is required to. The bonds of blood loyalty and land loyalty can become frayed over time, and it is best for a man to spend as much time as possible in the land that he has chosen as his home."
I looked back at Peter. He had not moved; his expression remained neutral. It took me several more tries to force my words to the surface. "It would not be right for me to stay here for three or four more years and then return to Koretia. If, however, you would be willing to consider keeping me as your free-servant beyond that time, I would like to live as an Emorian and serve the Chara as long as I may."